For a while in 2001-2, I
worked the night shift at a midtown Manhattan corporate gym (cue the shame and
self-loathing) at which I met several interesting characters.

One evening, for
example, I was wearing a Yankees t-shirt with the name "Justice"
emblazoned on the back (for former
Yank David Justice), when a woman named Mary--perhaps in her late 60s--asked
me if I were a Yankee fan. I told her I was...but my real reason for wearing
the shirt was all about the word "justice." She smiled and declared
that justice was a "noble idea."

This was shortly after
9/11, so I braced myself for the inevitable "we need to show those towel
heads some justice." Instead, Mary told me--albeit in a very low voice--she
was going to Washington soon to march against the impending invasion of
Iraq.

After this confession,
Mary looked genuinely nervous. Had she gone too far in the alleged land of the
free? I just smiled and said in my best underground resistance voice:
"Don't worry, I'm with you."

Mary and I proceeded
to talk in depth each time she'd come to workout. The company eventually phased
out the gym and let me go but just before so, I saw Mary and complimented her
on how hard she was training.

She leaned close to
me and whispered: "When the revolution comes, I'll be ready."

Which brings me to a
good question for 2011: Are you ready
for the revolution?

Being a revolutionary
needn't require one to sleep till noon, dress entirely in black, and sport a
rail-thin, heroin addict physique. Then again, neither should Michael Moore ever serve
as anyone's role model for healthy rebellion.

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If you agree that fitness--both mental and physical--is a crucial
component for any serious subversive, read on.

4 Steps to Radical Fitness

1. Condition Your Body

For example: Having your
arms yanked and bound behind you before being tossed onto a street corner or
jammed onto a detention bus can potentially cause damage to the muscles of the
shoulder and upper back. To better prepare for this seemingly inevitable
scenario, you might wanna seek help from the camel.

"Once we stop growing up corporate and grow up civic,
we will be much more focused on nutritious food, rather than junk food; we will
be much more inquiring about different kinds of products; we will look at
pollution as a form of violence, not just something that is nasty and dirty; we
will demand the mechanism so we can control what we own and use these great
resources for an enlightened, just, prosperous, happy society where the pursuit
of justice is filled with such joy it itself becomes the pursuit of happiness
and the pursuit of happiness becomes the pursuit of justice."